Bedroom, roughly 3m by 3.5m, carpet, one window, and a laptop that runs a DAW fine. I want to record guitar and vocals well enough to release songs, not to track other people's bands. The bundles all look like a saving and I cannot tell what is a real saving and what is filler to make the box look full. Interface, mic, headphones or the room, in what proportion?
Buy headphones before monitors and it is not close for your situation. Monitors in an untreated 3m room lie to you at exactly the frequencies you most need to hear, and you will spend months chasing a low end that is a room mode rather than a mix decision. A decent pair of closed backs for tracking and a decent pair of open backs for mixing, plus checking on whatever normal speakers you own, will get you further than any monitor you can afford at this budget in this room. Monitors are the reward for treating the room, not the first step towards it.
Agreed, with one caveat: mixing entirely on headphones takes some learning and your first few mixes will be off in the low mids. Reference other records constantly.
That is fair. Headphones are not a free lunch, they are a different set of problems that you can at least learn once rather than fighting a new room every time.
One good mic beats a bundle of three every time, particularly for acoustic guitar and voice where you are only ever recording one thing at a time. The bundle mics exist to make the box feel like value and the second and third of them will sit in a drawer forever. If you can stretch, the thing that surprised me most was how much a proper stand and a shock mount changed the takes, because a wobbly stand means you cannot place the mic precisely and placement is most of the sound on an acoustic guitar.
I bought a bundle first because it was on sale and within a year I had replaced the microphone, the headphones and the cables, and kept only the interface. So the bundle cost me the bundle plus the three replacements, and the saving was imaginary. Buy three things properly rather than seven things adequately, and buy them one at a time so you find out what actually limits you.
Interface, one condenser, closed backs, a solid stand. Spend the rest on a duvet, a rug and two hours of moving furniture.
@spreadsheet_tabs · 2w ago · 3 replies
Rough proportion I would use at that budget: a two input interface from any of the established makers takes a modest slice, one good large diaphragm condenser takes a bigger slice, closed back headphones for tracking take a small slice, and everything left goes on the room and on stands and cables. The order matters because at this level the interface is the least differentiated thing you will buy, preamps in current budget interfaces are quiet and clean and none of them will be why your recordings sound like a bedroom. The mic and the room are what people will hear. Do not spend anything on outboard, plugins or a second mic until you have recorded twenty songs.
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@milkcratepress · 2w ago
Twenty songs before buying anything else is a good rule to write on the wall.
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@couchto5kagain · 2w ago
It is also the honest test of whether you need the thing. Most of my gear purchases were avoidance of writing.
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